Reflections

By Uozumi

 

Author’s Notes:  Anyway, I got the first book (finally) yesterday (October 25, 2003), and this fic's been playing in my head ever since.  I own nothing, and wish I had books 2 - 7.  Also, like with all my other Banana Fish fics, there's a science to this one.  I bet you can figure it out.  I hope.

 

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Looking over at you, I spy a disbanded plastic jack-o-lantern in the corner of the room, and roll my eyes.  I hate those things so much, but you wouldn't have known that, so I don't blame you for placing a whole store full in here.  I wonder sometimes if you hate me for keeping you cooped up in here.  I guess I'm just overprotective, and you did have a point when you said that you merely met the neighbors because you do all the menial tasks that they are doing.

 

For a minute there, I entertained the idea of you babysitting for a few of those kids, but I don't feel like laughing right now.  If you knew what I was about to do, would you reproach me?  Would you tell me that I can't just throw my life away?  Don't you get it that it is all about you, not me?

 

Groaning, I look away from Eiji, and sigh.  It's only been almost eight months since I met him, and this is the last time I'll see him, god willing.  If there's a god, which I will admit that I have my doubts.  Shorter, when we were younger, once told me, "if you start wondering if there's a God, then you have no hope left," so is he right?  Now that I contemplate the Christian God's existence, does that mean I've given up?  That I know I'm going to die?

 

I don't know.  I hope I'm not going to die, and I also don't want Arthur to anyway.  Sure that's dumb, sure that's idealistic, and I think that it's Eiji rubbing off on me.

 

Glancing over at the said man, I sigh.  When I first met him, I was seventeen and he was nineteen, but now I'm eighteen, and I never bothered to ask when he did or will turn twenty.  I will admit that I was somewhat drawn to him that afternoon when Skipper brought him down to the pool hall with Ibé.  I thought that he was sixteen at the oldest, because he seemed a little older than Sing, but I guess like all, I had estimated wrong.  Why?  Why is it that whenever anyone looks at Eiji, they see an elementary or junior high school kid?  Is it his voice?

 

No . . . .

 

His face?

 

I study it a moment.  Although, now that I know that he is nineteen, I can see it, especially now that he's asleep.  Without his eyes open, with the absence of that intrigued, curious, innocent look, he definitely looks to be almost twenty.  I guess it's that since he's obviously a sheltered person, his curiosity and lack of jadedness keeps us all thinking that he's much younger, keeps us from giving the credit he deserves.  Although, he has his moments in which I don't blame them for thinking he's younger.

 

Lying down, I stare up at the ceiling, then roll away from Eiji.  I can't think about him, I need my sleep.  In a few hours, I will have to get up and get ready to go to the subway.  I don't want to think about that either, but both are my realities.  All that can calm me, all that can make me sleep is one simple thought:

 

At eight o'clock tomorrow morning, Eiji is going to be on a plane with Ibé, where he will go home to Japan, and stay safe and away from death.

 

THE END